RTW Tickets

First and foremost, we arrived at a preliminary itinerary which of course changed daily.

Next, we had to find how to get to all these places. Given my former life in equity research, researching the best ticket (fare/flexibility/ease of use) was the first and most important task in planning our RTW travel plans. Given that our itinerary spanned the globe, we figured a flexible and cheap (if possible) RTW ticket would be our best bet.

I happened upon a NYTimes article, "Traveling the Globe on a Single Ticket" which was a great start. We contacted both AirTreks and AirBrokers for preliminary quotes, but to our dismay, dates were inflexible. We wanted to be able to to change our plans accordingly especially if we decided to stay in one place longer.

We found that the three major alliances offer RTW tickets based on mileage or continents traveled and allowed for date flexibility. Tickets are also good for one year (i think).

One World (AA, British Airways, Cathay, Quantas) has two options: oneworld Explorer which is based on the number of continents traveled, as well as Global Explorer based on mileage. The oneworld Explorer allows up to four segments within each continent. There was even a dedicated phone number (American - 800.247.3247) to help with reservations. I also liked that we were given a reservation which we could continue to make changes as we saw fit over the course of a couple of months.

Star Alliance (United, Singapore - largest alliance) bases their RTW by mileage and website even has a handy mileage calculator. There were also a ton of options (RTW, Europe Airpass, Japan Airpass). Booking a ticket, however, required calling one of the reservation desk airlines. We called United. The process was incredibly painful as reservationist had little experience booking a RTW ticket. The initial process took more than an hour and the ticket was only on hold for less than a week.

Sky Team (Continental, Air France, Delta) also bases their RTW trip by mileage. Too bad the airlines do not cover much ground. The reservation desk (through Continental Airlines) was incredibly helpful (maybe because i'm Silver Elite), but the alliance just did not fly to where we wanted to go.

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In the end, we opted for the oneworld Explorer spanning five continents. I liked the dedicated reservations office, as well as the better price.

With our ticket, we were allowed to travel four segments w/in each continent with a total of 20 travel segments (includes overland). As of June, the total is now 16, i believe.

*Tip* Alan also found another loophole to lower the price of the ticket. For some reason, RTW tickets based out of London are cheaper. As a result, we booked our RTW oneworld Explorer through the London AA office. Our ticket starts/ends in London and we are going to use our miles from other airlines to get to London.

Our total ticket (including service charges, taxes, FX rate) came out to $4,228.08 vs. ~$5,500! Good deal in my opinion.